alison moyet

100 Pages·2017·19.14 MB·English

THOMAS DOLBY | DAVE CLARKE | ALISON MOYET | KEVIN GODLEY | ANDREW HUNG NOW IN 3D
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HELLO
W E L C O M E T O
E L E C T R O N I C S O U N D 3 5
EDITOR hat is a music producer? Yeah, what does a producer
PUSH W actually do? Is their role that of technical expert, able
@PUSHTWEETING
to place microphones in just the right place? Is it their
DEPUTY EDITOR deep knowledge of EQ and effects and signal-to-noise ratios that
MARK ROLAND
@MARKROLAND101 qualifies them to be in charge of a recording session? Or are they
some kind vibe master who creates the atmosphere needed to
ART EDITOR
MARK HALL coax the finest performances from temperamental artistes? Or
@HELLOMARKHALL are they strangely skilled in the arcane knowledge of The Song,
COMMISSIONING EDITOR constructing with unerring accuracy the necessary key changes,
NEIL MASON bridges, until it is a piece of art worthy of pressing into vinyl.
@NEIL_MASON
Psychologist, accountant, drug hoover, disciplinarian,
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT visionary, electronics wizard, radical experimenter,
FINLAY MILLIGAN
@FINMILLIGAN experienced parental figure, midwife, hand-holder, host, lover,
pal, sound obsessive, music lover, deal maker… Conny Plank
THANKS TO
was all of the above.
EMMA GARWOOD
With this issue of Electronic Sound, we wanted to place Conny
CONTRIBUTORS
centrestage and celebrate his work, and we scarcely mention
PIERS ALLARDYCE, STEVE APPLETON,
MARK BREND, SEAN COEN, BETHAN COLE, Kraftwerk. Plank’s contribution to music is almost immeasurable,
STEPHEN DALTON, GEORGE FAIRBAIRN,
and although we’ve devoted the cover story to him, and talked to
CARL GRIFFIN, ANDREW HOLMES, VELIMIR ILIC,
JO KENDALL, SOPHIE LITTLE, BEN MILES, BEN several key players in his life, including his son Stephan, whose
MURPHY, KRIS NEEDS, PETE PAPHIDES, ROBIN new documentary about his dad got this month’s ball rolling, we
RIMBAUD, CHRIS ROBERTS, WENDY ROBY, FAT
ROLAND, SAM ROSE, MAT SMITH, JOOLS STONE, feel we’ve hardly scratched the surface.
DAVID STUBBS, BRIAN SWEENEY, NEIL THOMSON, In other news, the ES team decamped to the Indulgence Show
SPENSER TOMSON, ED WALKER, BEN WILLMOTT
last month in London, and stumbled about being impressed by
ADVERTISING the multitude of high-end audio gear on display. We do wonder
[email protected]
01354 818 009 what Plank would have made of it all. I expect he would, like us,
have sat in stunned wonder listening to the surround mixes of
SUBSCRIPTIONS
ELECTRONICSOUND.CO.UK/SUBSCRIBE Kraftwerk’s ‘3-D The Catalogue’.
[email protected] Also within these pages for your reading pleasure The Don Of
01778 392 462
Techno (or should that be the Jack Dee of Techno?) Dave Clarke
PUBLISHED BY shoots the breeze with us, we go backstage with Düsseldorf
PAM COMMUNICATIONS LIMITED
prepared piano outfit Grandbrothers, visit Claire M Singer’s
STUDIO 18, CAPITOL HOUSE, ‘Organ Reframed’ event at Islington’s Union Chapel (her thing is
HEIGHAM STREET, NORWICH NR2 4TE,
the church organ, which is quite a thing and should be used more
UNITED KINGDOM
widely, despite them being bloody huge and generally stuck in
© Electronic Sound 2017. No part of this magazine may
churches), we find out all about the wildly popular ‘Welcome To
be used or reproduced in any way without the prior
written consent of the publisher. We may occasionally Night Vale’ podcast, Kevin Godley talks us through the making of
use material we believe has been placed in the public Godley & Creme’s ‘Cry’, there’s Andrew Hung, one half of 50 per
domain. Sometimes it is not possible to identify and
contact the copyright holder. If you claim ownership of cent of Fuck Buttons, on his splendid solo album, and we talk to
something published by us, we will be happy to make the Thomas Dolby – at last – about his, frankly, amazing life so far in
correct acknowledgement. All information is believed to
be correct at the time of publication and we cannot accept light of his book making it out in paperback.
responsibility for any errors or inaccuracies there may be in All this and so much more. You know what to do.
that information.
WWW.ELECTRONICSOUND.CO.UK Electronically yours,
FACEBOOK.COM/ELECTRONICMAGAZINE
TWITTER.COM/ELECTRONICMAGUK PUSH & MARK
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PUBLIC SERVICE
BROADCASTING
Eventim Apollo, London
26 October 2017
words: NEIL MASON
picture: SHAUN GORDON
What J Willgoose Esq, Wriggles-
worth and co do on record is one
thing, what they do live is another
beast entirely. Their live shows
are a spectacle, with knobs on.
Tweed ones at that.
Having released their ‘Every
Valley’ album back in July, they
hit the road on a seemingly never-
ending tour. Having ticked off
Mexico and the US, their October
UK tour culminated in this London
date at the venue formerly known
as the Hammersmith Apollo.
“I feel confident in predicting
these will be the best-looking
PSB shows to date,” tweeted Mr
Willgoose and, well, he wasn’t
wrong. With screens everywhere
– two large ones at the back
of the stage, six seemingly
suspended in thin air – and the
lighting cunningly disguised as
copper-looking miner’s lamps,
one of the many highlights was
a stomping romp through ‘They
Gave Me Lamp’, featuring the
excellent Haiku Salut and PSB’s
show-stopping brass section.
We counted a dozen people on
stage, which pales when ‘Take
Me Home’ closes the show with
an appearance from the Beaufort
Male Choir. A dozen people on
stage? Try two dozen.
“We were in the PSB dressing
room 10 minutes before the
show,” our man on the inside
told us, “and it was all so relaxed
and friendly, no one shouting to
clear the space so the band could
prepare. The show was great,
it had a really nice ensemble vibe,
and the crowd went absolutely
nuts.”
You’d think with that level of
rabble-rousing, this was the last
live show of what’s been a heck
of year for the band, but nope, it
doesn’t end here. With no more
than a few days off, they’re back
on the road kicking off a European
tour in Barcelona and winding up
in Paris on 29 November. We’re
booking the Eurostar now.
THE OPENING SHOT
5
4 The Opening Shot
THE FRONT
8 Reader Offer
11 Gulp
15 Kim Ki O
19 Souns
21 Shelter Point
22 Sean McLusky
24 Jack Dangers
26 Alison Moyet
28 Fat Roland
30 Godley & Creme
32 Synthesiser Dave
FEATURES
36 Conny Plank
46 Thomas Dolby
52 Welcome To Night Vale
56 Andrew Hung
58 Organ Reframed
64 Dave Clarke
70 Grandbrothers
THE BACK
74 The The
76 A parde, A Year In The Country, The Hacker,
Patrick Cowley
77 S un Rose, Visions Of Darkness, Bênní,
Blaine L Reininger
78 Tusks, Ross Blake, An Gella, Danny Mulhern
79 Gregg Kowalsky, Matt Berry, Visionist, Jonti
80 F rankie Goes To Hollywood, Snapped Ankles,
Partials Vol 1
81 Bill Brewster
82 Vic Twenty, Erol Alkan
83 Steve Cobby, Erland Dahlen, AB2088
84 H ologram Teen, Suzanne Ciani,
Reginald Omas Mamode IV
85 Coupler, Spaceship, Zazou/Bikaye/CY1
86 Scanner, Bibio, Twins Natalia
87 I n The Nursery, worriedaboutsatan,
Stefan Bachmeier
88 C all Super, NSRD, BRZZVLL, Off World
89 T he Belbury Circle, Hubro
90 Roni Size/Reprazent
91 M auno, Erik Honoré, Chet Doxas, Andrew Heat
92 G olden Teacher, Snow Palms, Penny Rimbaud,
Martyn Heyne
93 G ökçen Kaynatan, Necro Deathmort, Siinai, Jabu
94 B arry Adamson + Pan Sonic + The Hafler Trio,
Matias Aguayo & The Desdemonas,
Future Beat Alliance, Solo Colle
95 J ames Holden & The Animal Spirits,
Simian Mobile Disco
96 Needs Must
98 Stockists
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CONTENTS
OCTOPOD | PAGE 14
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ELECTRONIC SOUND
READER OFFER
EXCLUSIVE READER-ONLY LIMITED EDITIONS
THIS MONTH: A SPLIT SEVEN-INCH SINGLE, ‘THE GENIUS OF
CONNY PLANK’, IN A 3D COVER FEATURING GERMAN MUSIC
LEGENDS HARMONIA AND DAF
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READER OFFER
HARMONIA ‘NOTRE DAME’
Harmonia were something of a krautrock supergroup, formed when
Neu!’s Michael Rother joined forces with Dieter Möebius and Hans-
Joachim Roedelius, also known as Cluster. The three musicians, in
the mid-1970s hippie spirit and the German affinity for communal
rural living, gathered at Cluster’s studio in Forst on the German/Polish
border in 1973 and recorded their debut album, ‘Musik Von Harmonia’.
It was released in 1974, after which Rother teamed up with Klaus
Dinger once more for the third Neu! album, ‘Neu! ‘75’, again produced
by Conny Plank. The album marked the end of Neu! for the time being,
the fiery Dinger and the more mellow Rother – always a fractious
pairing – had exhausted their patience for one another.
Dinger went on to create La Düsseldorf, while Rother, Moebius
and Roedelius teamed up again for a second Harmonia album,
the luscious ‘Deluxe’. It was recorded with Conny’s mobile gear at
Forst, and mixed at his studio in Wolperath over the summer of 1975.
If ‘Musik Von Harmonia’ was a beautiful ambient work in the Cluster
tradition, ‘Deluxe’ created a delightful blend of their lightness of
touch, Rother’s celestial guitar and a pulsing rhythmic heart thanks
to that other krautrock drum genius, Mani Neumeier.
‘Deluxe’ is one of the very finest albums of the Conny Plank era
of German experimental music. “It’s impossible to say something
about Neu!, and Harmonia, without mentioning Conny Plank and his
contribution,” says Michael Rother in the new documentary, ‘Conny
Plank: The Potential Of Noise’. “There is huge respect worldwide for
everything Conny did.”
DAF ‘DER MUSSOLINI’
It’s a testament to Conny Plank’s dedication to sound, in particular
to the edges of what people found to be acceptable, that in 1981 he
was in the studio with a band from Düsseldorf called DAF, producing
their first major label album, ‘Alles Ist Gut’. The sessions would result
in a barnstorming stone-cold electronic music classic, the fearsome
stomp of ‘Der Mussolini’.
H OW DO I GET THE
After their debut album in 1979, the band decamped to London in
1980. By being based in the musical capital of the world, they hoped
ELECTRONIC SOUND
they would create some heat. It worked. They caught the attention of
Mute’s Daniel Miller, who signed them to the label for the ‘Die Kleinen
READER OFFER?
Und Die Bösen’ album.
In the new documentary, Miller recounts how DAF told him Plank
was going to produce the album: “I got a call from Robert Görl, saying,
‘Conny Plank wants to produce our album’,” says Miller. “I said, ‘Very THREE EASY WAYS…
funny!’. He was this mythological figure. I had no money, how are we
1
going to do it? They said ‘Don’t worry, Conny says he can do it in three Buy the latest issue directly
days’. So I said, ‘Wow, OK, let’s do it!’.” from electronicsound.co.uk as a
Miller flew to Cologne to see how the sessions were coming along, mag and vinyl bundle, so that’s
only to find DAF arguing. “I’d never made an album before and I was the magazine and Reader Offer
sitting next to my hero producer and my band weren’t even in the seven-inch, for just £9.99
studio, they were in the house arguing or discussing or whatever they
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fucking did. Conny said, ‘Don’t worry, it will be fine’.” Subscribe to the magazine at
Nothing happened for the first two days of the three-day session. electronicsound.co.uk/subscribe
Miller was getting frantic, but Plank was calm. As Görl says, “Conny and you’ll get an early bird email
left the musicians to their own devices, and then gave their stuff a offering you the latest Reader
boost”. In the event, half the album was recorded at Conny’s, the Offer at half-price each month
other half was a live recording. The record was a critical success,
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and enabled DAF to sign a major label deal with Virgin. Now with Visit electronicsound.co.uk and
a major label budget, who else to get to produce? The great Conny snap up the single on its own for
Plank did not disappoint, creating the full-blooded powerhouse sound £5.99. Hurry though, stocks are
of DAF. Play loud! very limited
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READ
(RICHARD AND) JUDY IN DISGUISE
THE BOOK OF THE YEAR HAS ARRIVED
Well, ‘Mute: A Visual Document, From 1978
– Tomorrow’ is quite the treat. The definitive
visual chronicle of Mute, it says here, and
isn’t it just. You know it’s going to be good
when on the opening page there’s an image
of a sheet of Letraset, and right at the bottom,
three Mute logos, the distinctive walking
man. Nice touch.
The book is the story of Mute Records,
written by Terry Burrows with Daniel
Miller. It’s 320-pages are packed with all
sorts of fascinating Mute-y paraphernalia,
artwork, flyers, press shots and the like,
interwoven with an extensive introduction
and commentary by Miller, who curated the
visual material in the book. Talk about from
the horse’s mouth, right? There’s a ton of
stuff on the main attractions, so the likes
of Depeche Mode, Fad Gadget, Yazoo, Nick
Cave, Erasure and Goldfrapp, but there’s just
as much about the Mute artists you might’ve
forgotten. Silicon Teens! Smegma! Non!
The book features comprehensive
discographies, a Mute family tree (we got
stuck on that page for a while let us tell you)
and lots and lots of great stories. There’s
also contributors from photographers Anton
Corbijn and Brian Griffin without whose work
Mute simply wouldn’t be Mute. If there’s
one book you need on the old Xmas list this
year, make it this one… then again, just over
there we’ve rounded up a bunch of other
books you should also be asking Santa for.
thamesandhudson.com/mute.com
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